ATTN JMS:The writer's rights to what he writ

[B5JMS Poster]

Subject: ATTN JMS:The writer's rights to what he writ
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 No. | DATE        |  FROM
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+  1: Aug 29, 1996: faa35 at dial.pipex.com (Jeannette Simpson)
+  2: Aug 30, 1996: jimkell at soho.ios.com (Quicksilver)
*  3: Sep  3, 1996: jmsatb5 at aol.com (Jms at B5)

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From: faa35 at dial.pipex.com (Jeannette Simpson)
Lines: 19

There's a heated arguement currently going on on
alt.fan.harlan-ellison regarding the "rights" of the public to each
and every piece of work, finished or unfinished, that a writer
produces. (The original question was regarding the rights of a writer
to have his/her work destroyed after death.)

HE has addressed this question in his inimitable fashion but I'd be
interested in how you would answer the conceit (my word) of those who
believe that by selling his work (and therefore 'using' the public) a
writer has no right to deny access to *any* of his works after death. 

And doesn't this impinge in part of the Cult of Personality question?

Jeannette






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From: jimkell at soho.ios.com (Quicksilver)
Lines: 25

Jeannette Simpson (faa35 at dial.pipex.com) wrote:
: There's a heated arguement currently going on on
: alt.fan.harlan-ellison regarding the "rights" of the public to each
: and every piece of work, finished or unfinished, that a writer
: produces. (The original question was regarding the rights of a writer
: to have his/her work destroyed after death.)

: HE has addressed this question in his inimitable fashion but I'd be
: interested in how you would answer the conceit (my word) of those who
: believe that by selling his work (and therefore 'using' the public) a
: writer has no right to deny access to *any* of his works after death. 

That's somewhat funny.  In Europe it's generally assumed that the writer
has the moral right to *prevent* the public from seeing any work of
his that he doesn't want them to see, even if it has been already
published with his consent.

Shows you how entitled we seem to think we are in the U.S.

--Jim!






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From: jmsatb5 at aol.com (Jms at B5)
Lines: 37

"I'd be interested in how you would answer the conceit (my word) of those
who
believe that by selling his work (and therefore 'using' the public) a
writer has no right to deny access to *any* of his works after death."

That's like saying that if a woman has sex with someone a few times, that
person is entitled to have sex with that person forever thereafter, that
the person can no longer say "no" having once put out.

Which is, of course, nonsense.  The writer's work belongs to the writer,
and if s/he chooses to have any unpublished material destroyed upon
demise, then that is the writer's right.  It's nobody else's business.  

Similarly, in my case, I destroy all my previous drafts of whatever I
write.  Anyone who wants to go through my files and pull out the earlier
(inferior) drafts of scripts or stories, looking for my handwritten
revisions...you ain't gonna find them.  They're gone, trashed, roundfiled.
 

A writer has the right to release that of his or her work which they
desire; it's their work, after all.  Nobody else gets a vote on that.

"And doesn't this impinge in part of the Cult of Personality question?"

Only in that some folks believe that they have a proprietary interest in a
writer, and that by virtue of spending X-dollars buying books, they *own*
that writer, or a piece of that writer, and that that writer is
accountable to them, owes them something more than the work, and the
respect between a writer and a reader.

Wrong.


 jms



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